O'Reilly ebook bundles now include DAISY talking book format

For years we’ve supplied our digital files to Bookshare, a non-profit that provides accessible reading material to the print disabled. For qualifying readers, our books are made available worldwide, and we’ve really enjoyed working with Jim Fruchterman and the Bookshare team along the way (I’m also on their Advisory Board).

Although the DRM-free EPUB files in our ebook bundles are compatible with many reading systems for print disabled customers, many readers prefer the DAISY format that Bookshare provides, and either don’t qualify for access via Bookshare, or would prefer to pay for the ebooks. Through a collaboration with Bookshare, today we’ve started making DAISY files available within our ebook bundles on oreilly.com for more than 800 titles. If you’ve already bought an oreilly.com ebook, you can find the DAISY files on your account page at members.oreilly.com or oreilly.com/e on a mobile device.

Our mission at O’Reilly is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators, and making our books available in accessible DAISY format helps us accomplish that mission.

Hi. I used to work for Jim Fruchterman as his European Marketing Manager in an earlier life. I am blind and am a member of the Technology Commission of the European Blind Union. I was wondering if the DAISY books your company produces are available here in Europe. Thanks, Mike Busboom P.S. I also got my BA from the University of IL. I grew up near Champaign/Urbana.

If you buy an O’Reilly ebook from oreilly.com, you may resell it when you’re done with it, provided that you do not retain any copies of the ebook after the sale. This is the same as the situation when you sell a used print copy — when you sell the copy, you deliver it to the buyer and no longer have a copy in your library. You may of course retain the hard copy if you sell the ebook.

By the way, because the lifetime access is a special benefit available only to those who purchase ebooks directly from oreilly.com, the lifetime access benefit is not transferable to the purchaser of your used ebook.

Regards, –Allen

Gerry Nies

If I work with a student who has already purchased the hard copy and really needs the DAISY version what should we do to get it?